t. 9. 1875] 



NATURE 



427 



menced the formation, in a small room in the Town Hall, of 



ection to illustrate the natural history of the district They 



have already got together a considerable number of birds, birds' 

 eggs, fishes, and insects, as well as the commencement of a 

 herbarium ; also a collection of the rocks and ores and 01 the 

 scanty fossil fauna of the neighbourhood. A few very interest- 

 ing celts and other prehistoric remains have been found in the 

 district, some of them close to the celebrated " Druids' Circle " 

 in the immediate vicinity of Keswick. Theie is evidently here 

 a rich field for the zeal and energy of the local naturalists and 

 archaeologists. 



The Quarterly Journal of the Meteorological Sccitty, No, 15, 

 has just been published, containing among other matters papers 

 on a Universal System of Meteorography, by Prof. F. Van 

 Rysselberghe ; Results of Meteorological Observations at Patras, 

 Greece, during 1873, by the Rev. II. A. Boys ; and Notes on 

 Sea Temperature Observations on the British coasts, by R. H. 

 Scott, F.R.S. 



A ZOOLOGICAL collection of remarkable interest, the Tivtes 

 states, more particularly to Londoners, has been added during 

 llie present year to the British Museum. It consists of the 

 Thames Valley series of remains of British elephants, rhinoceri, 

 deer, ox, &c., which have been discovered in the Ilford Marshes, 

 near Stratford, during the last thirty years, and has hitherto 

 formed the unique private collection of Sir Antonio Brady, of 

 Stratford-le-Point. The nature and value of this collection, as 

 now exhibited at the British Museum, will appear from the foU 

 lowing facts : — It contains remains of no less than loo elephants, 

 all of which have been obtained from Ilford. These are referable 

 to two species, viz., Elephas primigenius, the mammoth,^and E. 

 antiquus, a more southern form. The skeletons of each species 

 are represented by many fine examples, and the collection of 

 teeth and jaws represents elephants of every age and size, from 

 the sucking calf, with milk molars, to the patriarch of the herd, 

 whose last molars are so worn that they must have become use- 

 less for grinding his food. One characteristic of the Ilford ele- 

 phants is the number of the plates in the last molar tooth, which 

 has never been found to exceed nineteen or twenty, as against 

 the twenty-four and sometimes twenty-eight in other species. 

 The largest tooth is ten inches in length. The rhinoceri of the 

 Thames Valley are represented by eighty-six remains, of three 

 species, distinguished by the character or the absence of the bony 

 nasal septum — viz.. Rhinoceros inegarhinus, R. leptorhinus, and 

 R. tichorhinus. The British lion, which recent geology shows to 

 have been no myth, is represented by a lower jaw and a phalanx of 

 the left forefoot. The Brady collection also includes the Thames 

 Valley hippopotamus, which is found at Grays, as well as at Ilford. 

 The ruminants, such as the stag, bison, and ox, constitute fully 

 one-half the collection, numbering more than 500 specimens. 

 They include seven specimens of the great Irish Elk {Megaccros 

 hibernicus) and fifty of the Red Deer. 



We learn from the Lancet that the sanitary authorities of 

 Leicester have determined to institute an inquiry into the causes 

 and conditions of the high mortality in that town from diarrhoea, 

 and Dr. Beck and Dr. Frankland have been appointed to carry 

 out the inquiry. It was recently shown in Nature (vol. xii. 

 p. 281) that the average mortality in Leicester from diarrhoea, 

 and among infants, has far exceeded that of any other large town 

 in England, and that whereas the average highest mortality from 

 diarrhcca in any other large town during any week of the year 

 has not exceeded lO"5 on an annual mortality per 1,000 of the 

 population, in Leicester the average reaches 15-8. This large 

 mortality from diarrhoea has been a characteristic of Leicester each 

 jear since the Registrar-General began to publish the returns for 

 Leicester in his weekly reports, the distribution of the deaths 

 during the warm weeks and the number being plainly and directly 



dependent on the temperature. During the six weeks ending 14th 

 August last the deaths from diarrhoea in Leicester have been 121 ; 

 during the same six weeks of 1874 when the temperature was 

 higher, the deaths were 156. The peculiarity of the mortality 

 of Leicester'lies in this : whilst the rate of its infant and diarrhoea 

 mortality is enormously high, its annual death-rate for the whole 

 population is moderately low, being only 26 per 1,000 of the 

 population ; whereas in Liverpool and Manchester it is fully 

 thirty, or one-fifth more. Hence, in commencing a scientific 

 inquiry into the causes and conditions of this great destroyer of 

 the infant life of our large towns, no better beginning could have 

 been made than with Leicester. For reasons stated by Mr. 

 Buchan and Dr. Mitchell in their recently published paper " On 

 the Influence of Weather on Mortality" (Jour. Scot. Met. Soc, 

 vol. iv. p. 232), a separation of the infants that die, or are 

 attacked, into three classes — viz. (i) those nursed at the breast, 

 (2) those fed on cows' milk, and (3) those fed on slops— is most 

 desirablein such inquiries, particularly since facts seem at pre- 

 sent to point to the intimate bearing, on this vitally important 

 question, of high summer temperatures on milk exposed to them, 

 especially on the small portion 01 milk which may be carelessly 

 left in the apparatus used in the case of those infants that are fed 

 on cows' milk. 



We have before us three contributions to American Botany : — 

 I. Conspectus of the North American Hydrophyllacese, by Prof. 

 Asa Gray. The genus Eutoca, well known under that name to 

 flourish in this country, is here merged in Phacelia, which num- 

 bers about fifty species. 2. Revision of the genus Ceanothus, 

 and descriptions of new plants, by Sereno Watson. 3. Botani- 

 cal observations in Southern Utah in 1874, by Dr. C. C. Parry j 

 a series of papers reprinted from the Avierican Naturalist. The 

 south-western portion of the vast territory of the United States 

 has been for some years one of the most fertile portions of the 

 surface of the earth in yielding new species of plants ; very little 

 having been done, before Dr. Parry's visit, since the working up 

 by Torrey and Gray of the results of Col. Fremont's expedition 

 in 1844. A very interesting sketch of the botany 01 the district 

 is contained in these papers, together with notes of many new 

 species described by Prof. Gray and others. 



Prof. Palmieri has discovered a new instrument which he 

 calls a "diagometer," and which is constructed for the rapid 

 examination of oils and textures by means of electricity. What 

 the apparatus will do. Prof. Palmieri details thus : — i. It will 

 show the quality of olive oil. 2. It will distinguish olive oil 

 from seed oil. 3. It will indicate whether olive oil, although of 

 the best appearance, has been mixed with seed oil. 4. It will 

 show the quality of seed oils. 5. Finally, it will indicate the 

 presence of cotton in silken or woollen textures. The professor 

 has been complimented for this invention by the Chamber of 

 Arts and Commerce at Naples, who have published a full 

 description of the apparatus, with instructions for use. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include an Indian Leopard {Felis pardus) from India, 

 presented by Mr. G. Jasper Nicholls ; an Arctic Fox {Cani 

 lagopus) from the Arctic Regions, presented by Mr. C. R.Woodj 

 a Montagu's Harrier {Circus cineraceus), European, presented 

 by Capt. Hadfield ; a Lesser Sulphur-crested CocVsXoo (Cacatua 

 sulphurea) from Moluccas, presented by Mrs. H. M. Smith ; a 

 Wrinkled Terrapin {Clemmys rugosa) and five American Box 

 lortoises {Terrapene carinata) from Nicaragua, presented by 

 Mr. Edmond Isaacson ; a West African Tantalus ( 7a«/a/Mj ibh) 

 from West Africa; two Braeilian Tortoises (Testudo tabulata) 

 from South America, an Abyssinian Pentonyx {Felotnedusa 

 gehafi) from Abyssinia, deposited ; an Indian Fruit Bat (Ftero- 

 pus medius) from India, purchased; a ^Wapiti Deer {Cervus 

 canadensis) bom in the Gardens. 



